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A New Mussel‐Inspired Polydopamine Sensitizer for Dye‐Sensitized Solar Cells: Controlled Synthesis and Charge Transfer
Author(s) -
Nam Hye Jin,
Kim Boeun,
Ko Min Jae,
Jin Mingshi,
Kim Ji Man,
Jung DukYoung
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
chemistry – a european journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.687
H-Index - 242
eISSN - 1521-3765
pISSN - 0947-6539
DOI - 10.1002/chem.201202283
Subject(s) - dye sensitized solar cell , materials science , energy conversion efficiency , cyclic voltammetry , chemical engineering , electrode , coating , short circuit , adhesion , nanotechnology , optoelectronics , photochemistry , chemistry , electrochemistry , electrolyte , composite material , voltage , physics , quantum mechanics , engineering
The efficient electron injection by direct dye‐to‐TiO 2 charge transfer and strong adhesion of mussel‐inspired synthetic polydopamine (PDA) dyes with TiO 2 electrode is demonstrated. Spontaneous self‐polymerization of dopamine using dip‐coating (DC) and cyclic voltammetry (CV) in basic buffer solution were applied to TiO 2 layers under a nitrogen atmosphere, which offers a facile and reliable synthetic pathway to make the PDA dyes, PDA‐DC and PDA‐CV, with conformal surface and perform an efficient dye‐to‐TiO 2 charge transfer. Both synthetic methods led to excellent photovoltaic results and the PDA‐DC dye exhibited larger current density and efficiency values than those in the PDA‐CV dye. Under simulated AM 1.5 G solar light (100 mW cm −2 ), a PDA‐DC dye exhibited a short circuit current density of 5.50 mW cm −2 , corresponding to an overall power conversion efficiency of 1.2 %, which is almost 10 times that of the dopamine dye‐sensitized solar cell. The PDA dyes showed strong adhesion with the nanocrystalline TiO 2 electrodes and the interface engineering of a dye‐adsorbed TiO 2 surface through the control of the coating methods, reaction times and solution concentration maximized the overall conversion efficiency, resulting in a remarkably high efficiency.